News

Back in December (2016), the General Secretary of the General Union sat down (over Skype) with James Winovich, creator of ALTinsider.com, for a rare podcast interview.

If you're interested in the circumstances behind how our secretariat became involved in union activism, how the General Union operates, or various other tidbits of union information and trivia, be sure to give the podcast (embedded below the fold) a listen!

After our victory last year which saw a 90yen increase for per lesson instructors and a 10% lesson reduction for contract instructors, the union is plowing ahead with more demands for improvements. You can be part of this by joining the union. Our victories affect all employees and we hope that you join to make us even stronger.

Shane English School - formerly "part of the global Saxoncourt Group", though now owned by the juku operator Eikoh in Japan - describes itself as "a world leader in the provision of high quality English courses and related services". With businesses "in the UK and Europe, East Asia, South East Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa", it "prides itself on its commitment to educational excellence".

General Union members at Doshisha Kori Junior and Senior High School have been attempting to get their employer agree to a union "dues checkoff" system. This would allow union members to have their dues withdrawn directly from their monthly salaries.

Companies require you show up to work on time and - during the time you are being paid - give your attention to the job at hand. This is not only an expectation, however - they demand it of you, and will sanction you with pay cuts, fines, warnings, disciplinary actions, and dismissal, if you fail to live up to your end of the agreement.

Over the years, the General Union has played host to a handful of "OP-ED" articles written by members and non-members alike. For example, one of our most recent opinion articles - "The Myth of Low Cost Dispatching" - garnered quite a lot of attention on both Facebook and our website.

Ashiya Gakuen is composed of Ashiya University, Junior College, High School, Junior High School, and an attached Kindergarten. The university head-hunted Mr Oyagi, ex-rugby player and TV personality, to be Board Chairperson.

Soon, fraudulent accounting, the mixing of public and private matters, and improper use of assets began. Some people, including a head teacher at the High School blew the whistle alerting people. But Oyagi escalated the oppression of workers such as threatening and forcing some people to resign.

You might have heard the term seishain (正社員) but have you heard the word sennin(専任)? And how are they different?

Both words refer to employment status and both indicate that the worker is a permanent employee, most likely entitled to bonuses (not always), and in some cases, in particular at “rich” companies, even a big lump sum of cash upon their retirement. Depending on the length of employment, this can be over 10,000,000 yen.

One of the biggest arguments for the continued existence of dispatch companies (such as Altia Central, Interac, Joytalk, and Heart Corporation) is that it is "too expensive" for boards of education to directly hire people. The contention often goes that direct hire is a luxury that only the richest boards of education can afford; a position awarded to only the most experienced and trustworthy teachers in order to justify the high cost associated with such talent.

In contrast, dispatch companies provide ALTs "on the cheap"; they "create jobs" for people that would otherwise not exist were there no other options.

The General Union branch organising Osaka City Native English Teachers (CNETS) has won a small victory in forcing the Osaka City Board of Education to accept the right of teachers who have health problems to claim "shobyo teate" (Accident and Sickness Compensation; the equivalent of sick pay) on their health insurance.

Up until recently, teachers who were off from work sick faced pressure from Board of Education officials to use their annual leave.

Berlitz employees, dispatched to a junior and senior high school, joined the General Union last year after working for many years with no increase in their base salaries. They felt that, since regular Berlitz employees get pay increases, they should also be eligible for the same. They demanded that the company not only increase their salaries, but also address the fact that they had gone so long without a base pay increase.

We are happy to announce that we were able to secure a pay increase for all members based on seniority, stipends for extra duties, and a set yearly completion bonus for all.

As we have already reported, the Osaka Prefectural Labor Relations Commission issued a ruling on October 14th, 2016, stating that the Takasuki City Board of Education's decision to ban AETs (who are General Union members) from attending graduation ceremonies was an unfair labor practice.

In reaching their verdict, the Labor Relations Commission also ordered the Mayor of Takatsuki City to hand-deliver a letter to the General Union, admitting that Takatsuki City committed an unfair labor practice, and promising that they will never repeat that kind of petty (and illegal) behavior again.

Pregnancy is supposed to be a time of happiness and joy in a woman's life. It is also a time in which pregnant women have to be especially careful about their health, their finances, their work situation, and their relationships, as they make the journey towards motherhood.

This was the case for one woman who assumed that she had everything under control - until her employer, a Board of Education, informed her they would not allow her to take maternity leave. Instead of supporting her, the Board of Education decided that they would fire her.

In the past, we've spoken in detail about the numerous ways that some English Conversation schools exploit contracted teachers in order to "have their cake AND eat it".

As we've noted, they accomplish this by asserting that said contracted teachers are not REAL employees, but are ACTUALLY just freelance individuals who are "providing a service" to the company. Suffice to say, we are vehemently against this practice.

However, it's important to note that our stance against issue not just rhetoric. As a matter of fact, we're actually doing something about this situation:

This year we are proposing changes to both our constitution and By-laws. These changes are to reflect the reality that we are not just an Osaka based union but have members in many other regions in Japan.

At the height of the dispute between the former Takatsuki AETs and the Takatsuki Board of Education which had dismissed them for complaining about sub-standard housing conditions (prior to claiming that the AETs were never employees of the Board of Education to begin with), there was a particularly spiteful episode in which the Board of Education decided to turn a labor issue into a personal issue, reacting to the AETs labor actions by prohibiting them from attending their final graduation ceremonies.

At this point, all attempts at professionalism had been replaced with petty revenge, punishing both the teachers and their students by denying them from sharing in one of the most important events of a student's life together.

However, karma has a habit of catching up to everyone, regardless of their position in life...

On August 29th, the cyclone - now named "Lionrock" - abruptly and unexpectedly changed course, placing it on an unprecedented path towards Japan's tsunami and earthquake ravaged Tōhoku region, with Fukushima, Miyagi, and Iwate prefectures in particular braced to feel the full brunt of Lionrock's power...

For months now, the General Union has been reporting about the situation at Rainbow International regarding cases of unpaid overtime and paid annual leave.

We last reported that the Labor Standards Office (LSO) was trying to close the case despite Rainbow failing to follow the LSO's order to pay compensation. In fact, for the last three months, the LSO officer in question has been calling our office as much as three times per day to get permission to close the case. Each time we responded with a strong refusal.

Union members working at Kun’ei Girls High School have submitted demands for the 2017 academic year. We hope to hold collective bargaining in the very near future and work towards winning our demands as we did in 2015 when we won our minimum pay demands and school-provided computers for our members.

We submitted the following:

That the employer discuss plans for further campus improvements.

That the employer discuss plans for unlimited term contracts starting in 2018 based on the Labour Contract Law.

Union members working at Kun’ei Girls High School have submitted demands for the 2017 academic year. We hope to hold collective bargaining in the very near future and work towards winning our demands as we did in 2015 when we won our minimum pay demands and school-provided computers for our members.

We submitted the following:

That the employer discuss plans for further campus improvements.

That the employer discuss plans for unlimited term contracts starting in 2018 based on the Labour Contract Law.

As is often the case with all things in life: sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. In this case, back in the 1990s, we landed somewhere in-between.

The Higashi-Osaka Board of Education had one of the earliest direct-hire programs in all of Japan (outside of JET, that is). It was, at the time, a great program; unfortunately, there was a one major problem: a 3-year term limit placed on employment AFTER teachers were employed.

Thus, in our infancy as a union, we set out to smash the term limit completely...

It's not often that the General Union issues a "Caveat Subscriptor" warning, but given the recent number of enquiries and complaints that we have seen regarding Seiha English Academy, we decided that it would be in the public interest to advise people to perhaps think twice before deciding to work for this company.

In the midst of researching ALT working conditions at the Kitakyushu Board of Education, the Fukuoka General Union stumbled across a number of interesting documents via the Freedom of Information Act. Here's one, in particular, that made us quite unhappy...

In direct opposition to the law, the Board of Education has been caught demanding that a dispatch company replace the male ALT they were planning to send to the school with a female ALT, instead.

Their reasoning? They "had planned the curriculum on the premise of a female teacher coming to the school". This was a co-ed public school in Kitakyushu, and the school was willing to cancel classes until the male teacher was replaced.

Back in August (2016), we reported that - because of union action - there had been an excellent ruling by the Chuo (Osaka) Labor Standards Office against Rainbow International School over its culture of unpaid overtime. Unfortunately, we may have pressed that "upload to website button" a little too quickly...

In the midst of our dispute with ECC, upper management sent a letter to all teachers disparaging the union by spreading lies about our campaign to win pay increases. As well as spreading lies, the company has committed another Unfair Labor Practice by doing so. Right now, at the request of ECC, we are in non-binding arbitration over across the board pay increases. If talks fail we will be suing the company over the letter.

At the end of March, 2016, teachers who work on the special programs at Kwansei Gakuin’s Senri International Campus ("Saturday School" and the summer vacation "Just for Kids" program) were told that these programs would be closed from the end of March, 2018.

This month we submitted our list of the first union members at Berlitz Japan who will be having their monthly union dues deducted directly from their salaries and submitted to the union by the company once per month. This is called a "dues checkoff system".